This invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and more particularly to an improved jack panel construction normally mounted upon a telephone mainframe in a central office. Devices of this general type are known in the art, and the invention lies in specific constructional details which provide increased convenience in installation and the making of connections.
The use of jack panels which are mounted upon mainframes in a telephone central office provides a convenient means for making manual cross-connections, thus affording a degree of flexibility within the central office which is not otherwise available.
After installation of a plurality of jack panels upon a mainframe, the usual practice is to wire the panels to incoming cabled circuitry starting at a medially disposed level on the frame, and as the subscriber circuit density increases, jack panels are connected in serial fashion in either an upward or downward direction upon the frame. While such wiring is not normally particularly complicated when the first few panels are interconnected, as more wiring appears at the rear of the mainframe behind the jack panels, difficulty increases, not only in terms of accessibility, but in terms of sheer bookkeeping on the part of the craftsperson performing the installation to prevent improper wiring of the circuits.